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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Bishop George Berkeley(1685--1753), an Irish philosopher, was the first to prove that there is no such thing as matter at all, that the world consists of nothing but minds and their ideas. In his Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous he takes the side of Philonous who mercilessly drives the matter-believer Hylas into contradictions and paradoxes, and makes his own denial of matter seem, in the end, as if it were almost common sense.

Considering the multitude of atrocities and incredibilities in human history (yesterday I recalled the unbelievable incidents between German and French diplomacy in 1870) you may believe that all this could not be real matter but only perception of human minds.

@epitimaiosCherries materially don´t exist. Since Berkley there is only the perception of something sweet. That is the reason for Frenchmen calling their sweethearts “chérie”. @MichaelGood luck for the Ten Commandements. You are going to materialize them. For a while.

"Hyle" is the ancient greek word for "wood" and by extension "matter", "Philo-nous" would be the friend of intelligence.Yet I didn't read these dialogues, but they are probably very amusing. One should try to insert them partly in a bigger plot with some other persons and write an opera buffa together with, let's say... Giorgio Battistelli or Wilhelm Kellmayer or Rainhard Fendrich.